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Moving Memories
Bonus Scenes!

These are scenes I'd had in the original version, but through rewriting they were deleted.
Because I liked them, I decided to make a deleted scenes section for em! So here ya go ^^

Author Note: I'd originally had this inserted at the end of chapter 11, detailing the invitation to the Halloween party in chapter 12. I wanted to be pretty consistent with the length of the chapters though, and this scene would have exceeded my limit. In the end, I liked it and thought it was really cute and I really enjoyed looking back on the characters and seeing their personalities all mash together, so I wanted to include it somehow.

~ (^.^) (^.^) ~

"Come skate with me!" Sakura exclaimed.

"Sure, Sakura," Sasuke agreed, and Sakura squealed with joy. She began to drag him away, but he glanced over his shoulder at Naruto.

"Coming, dobe?" he asked, and Naruto couldn't suppress his stupid grin.

"Yeah, come on Naruto!" Sakura agreed. She didn't seem to mind, as long as Naruto didn't try to hold Sasuke's hand or anything. Naruto nodded and hopped back on the ice in much higher spirits. He took his rightful place beside Sasuke, as opposed to trailing behind.

"I wanted to ask if you like Halloween," Sakura told Sasuke excitedly. "You should come to our Halloween party! Ino and I are hosting it! We just decided!"

"I would love to, Sakura," Sasuke said kindly. "Thank you."

"Oh, you're welcome!" she said happily, melting at the smile on Sasuke's face. "Of course Naruto and Kiba will come too, right?" she added hopefully, looking across Sasuke to Naruto. She already knew her friends would say yes though. Well, at least Naruto would. Kiba hadn't been so reliable. This was the first time he'd actually agreed to go out with them. It might have been too much to expect him to come to the party.

"Of course!" Naruto exclaimed without hesitation. He forgot how annoying Sakura's crush on Sasuke was in favor of how exciting the prospect of a party with his friends would be, especially if this new Sasuke was going to be there. "I'll make sure Kiba comes too," he added.

"Thank god!" Sakura exclaimed. "That boy really needs to come out more often!"

"I agree!" Ino exclaimed, arriving and wedging herself in between Sakura and Sasuke.

"Ino!" Sakura growled.

"All of us will be together and dancing youthfully into the night!" Lee exclaimed, arriving next and wedging himself in between Sakura and Ino. "We will be as happy as springtime!"

"Leeeeee!" Sakura groaned.

"Calm down, Lee," TenTen said as she skated up and wedged herself between Naruto and Sasuke, throwing an arm around them both. "Although, I am pretty excited about it too, especially if Sasuke is going!"

Neji placed his hands between Sasuke and TenTen and then spread them wide. He didn't have to squeeze in between them to make his point any more obvious. Wanting to remain in good standing with everyone, which included Neji, and also looking for any excuse to get next to his dobe again, Sasuke took Neji's gesture as a cue to skate around to Naruto's other side. Neji nodded appreciatively at Sasuke—really, his girlfriend could be too flirty sometimes—and took the spot where Sasuke had just been.

Naruto couldn't help the way his heart soared when Sasuke skated so close to him that they accidentally brushed against each other a few times. They were just accidents and it wasn't like he suddenly had Sasuke's heart in a bag, but he felt giddy anyway. Lacking the abilities that Sasuke was blessed with, Naruto had no way of knowing just how calculated those brushes had been or just how easily Sasuke's heart soared to match his.

"OI! What's going on?!" Kiba called from behind everyone. Naruto turned to look at his friend, beaming. He was more than happy to see Kiba's spirit finally return. He had been waiting for this Kiba to come back for far too long now. He wondered what could possibly make this evening any better.

"Ino and Sakura are hosting a Halloween party!" Lee said excitedly.

"Awesome!" Kiba exclaimed. "I'll even bring a guest," he added, smiling and nudging Gaara in the side. Gaara simply sighed.

Naruto thought that it would have been the perfect time for Kiba to break out his trademarked huff. That would've been the ultimate sign that he truly was back to his old self. Even if the huff never came, Naruto would still smile easily though, because things were going so well. Then, as fate would have it, Kiba huffed like he always used to do and nudged Gaara again. And then, just to prove that the universe was on Naruto's side, Gaara actually smiled. It was a smile reserved solely for Kiba, and Naruto could tell that there was no one else on the planet to Gaara other than Kiba right at that moment. Things were finally falling back into place. Maybe they were even lining up better than they used to be.

Naruto truly could rest easy tonight.

Author Note: This scene was at the end of what used to be chapter 18. Chapter 18 got rewritten heavily, so there was no place for this scene anymore. I liked it though, because chapter 18 originally centered around Gaara and Kiba's relationship and Naruto trying to fix it again. Of course, I changed that ending so the scene had to go. I like how it gave insight into what Gaara was thinking, however, so I wanted to put it here ^^

~ (^.^) (^.^) ~

Naruto simply said Gaara's name, but Kiba recognized immediately what Naruto was doing. His face fell into an automatic expression of dread, his mouth dropping open as he muttered a shocked and breathy, "Don't."

It was too late to take back though, not that Naruto wanted to. He wasn't even sure if the beckoning would work, to be honest. The bond between him and Gaara had been unclear for quite some time now. There was a point in time when he'd been positive that the redhead would come at a moment's notice. Now, however, he wasn't so sure. Hell, the bond might be so shattered between them that Gaara might not even feel the call at all. Those doubts having taken root in his mind, Naruto was actually shocked when Gaara suddenly appeared a few feet before him.

"Gaara," Naruto greeted curtly.

Gaara simply nodded in return. His expression was mostly blank, save for a tiny sneer still pulling slightly at the corners of his lips.

Naruto glanced back at Kiba, who was staring steadfastly down at the ground between his feet. That image of Kiba having been reduced to something so weak and introverted because of what Gaara had done fired him up quickly. He straightened out his posture and turned hard eyes back to regard Gaara, who had to fight the urge to balk at his attempt to be intimidating.

"I know," Gaara said before Naruto could even begin, "but you should save your breath." He paused long enough to flicker a quick glance at Kiba. "You're going to blame me for his state of being, but there's no point."

"What?!" Naruto snapped. "You're saying that it's not your fault?"

Gaara closed his eyes slowly, probably trying to regulate his mood. "I'm not saying that. I'm saying that there's no point in scolding me," he clarified, opening his eyes just as slowly as he'd closed them. "I am well aware of the things I've—"

"The bruises?" Naruto cut in, his temper flaring and hit Gaara like a wave. The redhead clenched his teeth to control how Naruto's emotion was affecting him. "You're aware of those?" Naruto went on. "You remember it all, the pain you caused him, and you don't think you're to blame?"

"I'm not saying that," Gaara ground out.

"Then what are you saying?" Naruto demanded.

"Shut up and I can tell you," Gaara retorted shortly.

Naruto narrowed his eyes before throwing out his arms in an impatient gesture, which only served to further agitate Gaara.

"I'm saying that I cannot take back what I've done," Gaara began. "I expressed before that we should not be a couple, but he refused to accept my judgement." He paused for a moment to ready himself, knowing that Naruto would become outraged again when he said the next words lined up on the tip of his tongue. "I carried out the actions, and I regret them. But the fault, in the end, is on the one who would not accept reality when it was thrust in his face. I would never have..." Gaara just trailed off when Naruto began talking over him loudly.

"Are you serious?! You're blaming Kiba for what you did?!" A few quick steps and Naruto was right up in Gaara's face. "What would your parents say—"

"They'd say all the better!" Gaara spat, shutting Naruto up. "They'd wish I'd killed him just to teach me a lesson! And he's lucky I haven't! If he hates me, Naruto, then all the better because one day I will kill him! And then what do you think that'll do to me?!"

Naruto barked with derisive laughter. "As if I should—"

Gaara didn't have to hear the rest of that sentence to be thoroughly offended by it. He could feel Naruto's aura rolling of him in thick waves, each slamming into him more forcefully than the last. But Gaara had known he'd be creating this vicious visage for himself, and he'd had no qualms with it in the beginning. He knew that people would think he was a sick monster, but he was okay with that because that was what he was. He was unable to control himself around Kiba anymore. Years and years of trying to suppress who he was had finally caught up with him. In the end, his bond to Kiba was not strong enough. He loved Kiba. With all of his heart, he loved Kiba. But it was clear that sometimes love was not enough, especially not for a vampire.

He had been good. He had been so good. He had treated Kiba well. They'd been happy. One day, though, his instincts just came out of him, ripping him apart from the inside out. He'd been destroyed. Everything they'd worked to build up—the tolerance, the ability to suppress the urge, the trust, the love—was all shattered in a day. That was what happened with vampires though. They were beasts. You can cage them and tame them and call them your friends, but they'll never truly stop being wild.

Gaara had actually thought that he could pretend to be human, if only for Kiba and their love, but that was what ruined everything in the end. He'd forgotten who he was, what he was, and he hadn't armed himself against himself. He'd let the facts slip away to the back of his head in favor of playing house. He'd slipped up. And after that first taste of animalistic freedom, he couldn't stop. He couldn't stop himself from wanting to kill Kiba, from wanting to suck out out every last drop of blood. And that frustration built up as he tried to recover from that first incident. He'd tried to come back to himself, to be that man that had loved Kiba for all these years... but he couldn't.

The urges just would not rest. He had to bite, to feed, to kill... to kill. And when he wouldn't allow himself to do that, when he tried to force himself to be more civil than he was capable of being, Kiba had falsely thought it was safe to get close again. It wasn't, but Gaara couldn't say no to Kiba. He couldn't push Kiba away again because he loved the man so heart-wrenchingly much, because he wanted to be touched and held and loved. Even if he couldn't handle it, he'd wanted it. He'd wanted it so badly.

But when Kiba wanted to become intimate again and begin to truly patch up what had been broken, Gaara snapped. He'd known it'd be too much, and it turned out exactly as he'd expected. The urges were stifling, and that made him angry. And out of that anger, he'd punched Kiba. Kiba had done it out of pure innocence and Gaara had sort of condoned it by not shooting it down right away, but those facts could not stop Gaara's reaction. Gaara hated himself for it, but it actually felt good to release his tension... so he impulsively did it again. And then after that, he just couldn't stop. He couldn't stop the satisfaction of releasing all that anger on Kiba. And he couldn't stop himself from feeling like Kiba kind of deserved it either.

Every time Gaara's anger would build up, he'd just release it on Kiba. He never hit hard or long enough to draw blood, knowing that would throw him over the edge completely, but he certainly abused Kiba enough to force the man to start wearing long sleeves and jeans exclusively. Kiba wouldn't give up though. He was so desperate for reconnection that he'd let himself be brutalized in hopes that it would make Gaara concede. He'd thought, naively, that if he could just be a punching bag long enough for Gaara to release all that anger, then Gaara would remember how to be loving again. That never happened though. If anything, Gaara got angrier the longer that Kiba stayed around.

Gaara knew that he had become a beast—to enjoy treating Kiba that way, even if he was also disgusted by it—but that was who he was. He couldn't change that. He couldn't escape that. He was a predator, and Kiba was fated to become his prey from the start. He knew that succumbing to the anger and frustration would only make him even more of a monster than he already was, but it was so satisfying. Sick, but satisfying. He knew it would drive Kiba away too. He knew it would get him the results he wanted in the end.

In his current state, who could blame him? Part of it was just the beast being a beast, but part of it was tactics too. He knew that hurting Kiba enough would make Kiba want to go away. And even though he'd be creating the very image he'd been trying to avoid all his life with his actions, he'd done it anyway. At that moment, though, it seemed like it was all he could do. It was the lesser of the two evils for him. So, yes, he'd known what he'd been doing when he'd started doing it. And so shouldn't he have been prepared for this very situation? Shouldn't he be unaffected by Naruto's response? He had steeled himself for something exactly like this. So why was it that, as those waves of emotion poured off of Naruto and pushed at Gaara's core, his composure snapped like a brittle little piece of nothing?

"How dare you judge me?" he hissed venomously in Naruto's face as he pinned the blond against a nearby tree by his neck.

All Naruto could do was try to pry the fingers from around his throat, but that was a futile effort and he knew it.

"Gaara! Don't!" Kiba shouted, immediately rushing to his friend's aid.

"You live in a fantasy world, Naruto!" Gaara spat.

"Let him go!" Kiba pleaded, arriving at Gaara's side and grabbing the arm holding Naruto's neck while pulling back on Gaara's shoulder. "Gaara, this isn't you," he added, his voice sounding far too soft for the situation at hand.

Gaara snapped his fierce gaze over to Kiba, who flinched in response, before looking back at Naruto and continuing his tirade. "You think I didn't feel his pain?" Gaara asked. "You think it didn't hurt me too? Is that it, Naruto? I may be a monster and I may not be able to escape that, but I still love! And I loved him!"

Gaara finally let Naruto go, completely unfazed by the way the blond gasped furiously for air. He glanced at Kiba, and the two eyes staring at him through a thick haze of fear and tears caused him to falter. He pressed his lips into a thin line as pain shot through his core in a sharp pang, directly conflicting with his almost stifling bloodlust. He turned eyes half as angry but twice at fierce back to Naruto.

"You know nothing," Gaara hissed. By now, his chest was heaving and his throat throbbing.

His vision was clearing from its haze now, but Naruto didn't need to look and see Gaara's expression to know what the redhead was feeling. Naruto had looked at the situation one-sidedly all along. He'd been quick to judge. But as he felt Gaara's reaction really seep into his bones, he felt like he understood. He'd never understood anything since this had all begun back when he'd met Kiba in that art gallery, but he felt like he was beginning to get a fraction of it just now. His thoughts fell upon Sasuke. He could understand Gaara better, however slight that understanding was, and he felt like he could also understand Sasuke by extension too. But he was still a fool, always the fool. Stupid. Blind. Naive.

He tried to stand but fumbled to catch his footing. He managed to stabilize himself using the tree though. "No," he choked out, his voice quiet and raspy, "I know nothing."

Sasuke chose that moment to interject, unable to stomach the defeated tone to Naruto's voice. "That's enough."

The words came to Naruto from his left, but he was thrown off balance when he tried to look over his shoulder in that direction. With his head still feeling rather woozy, he began to topple over. He could have regained his own footing and righted himself, but he felt arms catching him before he could even try. He recognized this scent and the voice that had preceded it, and he wanted to push it all away. His energy was at an all-time low though, what with expending so much of his little reserves on his confrontation with Gaara, so he remained powerless to change anything.

Gaara snarled, but the smooth voice simply repeated itself. "That's enough."

Author Note: This scene originally went at the very end of chapter 18 and would've come right after the scene you just read. The new scene with Naruto and Kiba sneaking off before Kiba summons Sasuke used to be Naruto summoning Kiba to try to reconcile their relationship. There ended up being a space for this scene, unlike the one above, in the new chapter, but it just didn't seem to fit. I like it though, so it goes here ^^

~ (^.^) (^.^) ~

Sasuke placed a gentle hand on Naruto's chin and tried to turn his face up, but Naruto swatted that away, causing Sasuke to sigh.

"Naruto, can we just—"

"No," Naruto interjected, his voice quiet but not soft at all.

Sasuke tried to hide a flicker of pain and disappointment as it passed. But what had he been expecting, if not this? He'd known it'd be like this when they finally met again. So why did it still hurt so much, even after he'd prepared for it? Maybe it was the fact that he'd put so much effort into crafting this very moment. He'd fixed himself. He'd come out of that dark, dark hole he'd been falling into. No more drugs. No more Sai. Well, Sai was dead. But, nonetheless, there was no more of him. No more starving. No more living in misery. He was changing for the better. He was slowly healing himself, but there was some healing still left to do, healing that he knew he couldn't complete without Naruto.

He'd climbed up from the black abyss he'd fallen into with the help of those around him and set his pride aside to become the best version of himself that he could possibly be. All so that he could have Naruto back, so that he could face Naruto properly in this moment. But Naruto wouldn't give him the time of day, and that hurt. Maybe he could never have prepared himself enough for that type of rejection. He brushed it away though. He wouldn't admit defeat so easily, not when it came to Naruto. He opened his mouth to speak again, but Naruto was talking before he could begin.

"I said no," Naruto said firmly. Sasuke paused for a long moment. While Naruto refused to meet the other's gaze, he could still feel Sasuke's eyes on him. And that feeling made his skin crawl for various reasons, none of which he liked. He began to get fed up with the situation, so he repeated himself hotly. "I said no, so go away!"

Sasuke said nothing and made no move to do as he was told though. His eyes swept across Naruto's entire figure—sunken in eyes with dark circles, hollowed face, bones protruding where they never used to. Naruto looked awful, and Sasuke vaguely wondered if that had been how he'd looked too. Now, of course, he'd gotten himself together. He was back to a healthy weight, but it seemed like Naruto had taken his place instead. That upset him though. He wanted to see Naruto thriving, not struggling to get by. Eventually, Sasuke's silent stare became too irritating for Naruto to resist, so he snapped harsh eyes to Sasuke.

"I said—"

"There they are," Sasuke breathed.

The words were spoken so softly that they were barely a wisp of air. Yet, they were strong enough to silence Naruto's voice and freeze whatever had been roiling inside of him. Somehow, the ghost of a smile even slipped onto Sasuke's face, and that stunned Naruto for a good moment longer. He couldn't help but think that Sasuke looked really well. Last Naruto had seen him, he was a frail excuse for a human being. He was a real mess, much like Naruto now was, but he looked healthy now. He looked... he looked really good. That moment passed, though, and Sasuke began to see and feel things swirling within Naruto again. It was unspoken, but there was another clear rejection radiating from the blond.

"I know," Sasuke said, too lightly for Naruto's taste. "You said no. But you didn't even let me finish."

"No," Naruto repeated yet again, faintly noting that he was beginning to sound like a broken record.

Sasuke sighed at the regression. "But I have so much to say," he argued. He tried carding his hand gently through Naruto's hair but it was swatted away again, though with far less aggression this time. "Won't you hear me out?" Sasuke asked, his voice so soft and inviting.

Naruto contemplated the question for a long moment, but then he realized that there was nothing to contemplate. He'd been pacified by the flicker of affection he saw in Sasuke's eyes. They were, clearly, impairing his judgement, so he opted to look away again. "I don't have the time," he finally said.

Sasuke's temper flared at this, but he tamped it down. "You have lots of time," he replied surely.

"And how would you know?" Naruto said, scoffing lightly. "You tossed me from your life, remember?" he added in a spiteful murmur.

It was clear that Naruto had no idea he'd been the sole object of Sasuke's attention since that fateful day. He hadn't actually been forgotten, not even for a moment. Still, though, Naruto was none the wiser to that fact, and that gave the blond reason to be hurt. And watching Naruto hurt made Sasuke hurt too. He paused for a split second, just long enough to feel those words sting him in his core, before he spoke.

"I can feel you," Sasuke informed, "even if you ignore me. I know... what you've done... what you do..."

Naruto's brows furrowed slightly in confusion. "What the hell does that mean?" he asked, turning back to Sasuke and finding that the man's eyes had hardened. That certainly made it easier to look at him, now that they weren't so sweet and adoring. "You're stalking me?"

"No. I just... I know what you do," Sasuke repeated significantly. "Like I said, I can still feel you."

Naruto's eyes widened slightly when he finally understood what Sasuke was referring to. His cheeks tinted ever so slightly with red, partly from embarrassment and partly from anger. What the anger was for, he wasn't sure. But for some reason, he felt like Sasuke was invading his privacy and that made him mad. Sasuke could sense all of this in Naruto, so he hurried to explain himself further. Though, he didn't really know how either.

"I can sense you on a whole other level," he added. "I know things... things that I don't wanna know." He gave up on explanations at that point and decided to just get back to the point. "I think you can brush aside your lovelust long enough for us to talk is what I wanna say."

Naruto's cheeks went redder. "No."

Sasuke resigned to defeat, but he wasn't going to leave without one last try. "Meet me," he requested.

Naruto rolled his eyes and groaned with frustration. "How many times do I have to say no?"

"Fine," Sasuke conceded. "Don't meet me. Just take a detour over to my studio then," he suggested instead. "There's something there for you."

"I don't want it," Naruto said simply.

"Why not?" came the quiet reply.

Naruto clenched his hands into fists, if only to keep his fingers from trembling. "Because, Sasuke, you're not the first to abandon me, and I know very well that gifts and tokens of memories only make it worse." After a second, he added, "I don't want to remember you. I want to forget. So keep it."

Sasuke knew he should leave at that point, but he was unable to leave this last thought unspoken. "Our bond," he began softly, "it's not broken yet... That should count for something."

He stayed still and silent for a moment, allowing Naruto time to respond if he wanted to. But the blond was just as still and silent, although exceptionally tenser. Those were the very words Naruto had been trying to avoid since their falling out, though they had always been ever-present in the back of his mind. He'd always known that the bond hadn't been broken. Maybe it couldn't be broken. Even he, a bijuu, couldn't manage to put a dent in it. And it was his own bond to begin with! But he wanted to pretend that it was gone anyway. He'd tried to sever it, but that was how he'd learned that it took a great deal of will to actually break something that had once been so important to you. It was there always, haunting him. But he didn't want that. He didn't want that at all.

He just wanted to keep living in the fantasy he'd created with Kiba. Was that so much to ask? For just a little bit of peace?

Author Note: This scene actually largely made it into the story as a transition in chapter 22 when Kiba is finally changed by Gaara and Naruto is told to leave the suite. He goes down to a suite below as directed by Kankuro and Temari, and he finds Sasuke. The scene isn't exactly the same in the published version, but a whole lot of the substance is. Just the beginning and end of this scene were changed up, but I like this original version too xD

~ (^.^) (^.^) ~

Naruto paused to just be impressed by the space of suite one for a long moment. When the elevator doors tried to close him in again, though, he jumped out. First to demand his attention was the far wall, which was covered entirely in glass. He noticed that the studio had the same adjustable tint feature as the living suites above because that was all that could explain why it was so dark in the bulk of the space, except for the window pane farthest to the right, which was only tinted about half as much as the rest. The lighting let in by the tinted windows was dim. The tint at its highest could make a room fairly dark, but Naruto knew the suites above well enough to know that the tint on the darker panes was only at about halfway, which was enough light to see the features of the room just fine.

He glanced around the left half of the room, noticing the lounge area nestled next to the windows and the different types of storage cabinets that were directly to his left. He glanced briefly to the right, long enough to note that the area was a kitchen, and turned his attention to the most interesting part of the room. The bulk of the right half of the space was taken up by two columns of tables covered in various pieces of art. Most of the pieces were paintings, but not all of it was on canvas. Naruto could see pottery, old furniture that had been painted over, and a variety of other knickknacks that had been given an artistic touch.

Naruto mused that the space was probably Gaara's. Perhaps his art had been cathartic for him as of late. He tried to imagine Gaara in his usual crazed state painting a picture, which made him smile in amusement. The room was so quiet that Naruto could hear his footsteps echo when he started to moved toward the corner of art. Most of the art strewn about the tables was in line with the brightest window pane, so he was able to make out their features fairly well.

He meandered slowly around the table closest to him. He paused at each piece only momentarily, but he stopped for a prolonged period at a sculpture of a woman that was set on the ground between two tables. She was a few inches shorter than Naruto and only the basic form was complete while the molding clay to create the features had just begun to be put on. Almost everything below the neck was just a hard cast, but even so Naruto admired her form. There was some molding on the chest where two clavicles took slight shape. There was some clay on the neck, but most of the molding had been focused on the face so far.

Her features were beautiful. There was a small, pixie-like nose that peeped out. Her lips were thin, almost a familiar shape. It was her eyes that really caught Naruto though. These were, by far, the most detailed pieces on her form so far. They had, clearly, been worked on tediously. He stepped closer, peering carefully at the detail, but his concentration was interrupted by a quiet sound. His heart started slightly and he whipped his head toward the windows. He leaned to be able to see past some of the taller art pieces and realized that there was a form sitting right in front of the window. It became clear to Naruto by what he saw that the person was painting and the noise he was hearing was brushstrokes.

Naruto watched the motion of the person's hand, not moving or saying anything. He listened intently. Shouldn't he have heard a person in a room this quiet? He focused to zone in on the sound of life—a heartbeat, slow and steady. Then came the slight whir of breath, which Naruto decided was abnormally slow. He was watching the person's hand as it painted strokes across the canvas, and there was no indication that the person wasn't breathing properly. Yet, Naruto decided that there was no way anyone could breath that soft and slow.

Just when he made a stark decision about what type of being he was seeing, the figure paused and turned their head. With the light behind them, it was difficult for Naruto to make out any definite features. What he'd seen so far was basically a silhouette, but he could see a slight smile on the person's profile as the light curled around their face. He didn't need his sight to know this person though. He'll he didn't need any of senses. Just his heart would do.

Uncertain about how to go about this situation, he called out, "I'm sorry." He almost flinched at how loud his voice sounded as it echoed through the quiet space. "I didn't mean to... intrude..." he added, talking more softly.

The form shrugged and looked back at the canvas. "You like her?"

Naruto recognized that voice so well. He knew why the art looked familiar in style. There was no way it could be Gaara's. Naruto had seen maybe three or four pieces of Gaara's art and the feeling hardly stuck in his chest. Gaara was an amazing artist, but Sasuke was a true genius. The one piece Naruto had seen of Sasuke's had been powerful enough to stick in his memory like glue.

Author Note: And that's it, the official end. I have to thank everyone for sticking with me through the story and of course all those who have reviewed/messaged me. I am so thankful for all of the encouragement to keep going and get it done, for all the support for various decisions I've made throughout the story, for constructive criticism and reader feedback on things I would never have noticed without ya'll. I am so glad to have had such an active audience willing to participate throughout this whole endeavor and I had a lot of fun writing this story for you guys. In the end, it was a bumpy ride, but it was fucking great. I love you all, and I am endlessly grateful.

As I continue my hiatus, I'm going to be working on some stories and trying to get them solid before I attack them on such a public forum. Procrastination is my worst flaw! Not sure when I'll be active here again, but keep tabs on me because ya'll know by now that I'm unpredictable and I can pop up at any time. I'll never disappear permanently though, at least not any time soon. I still have so many stories to share with ya'll!

~Boo